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refuse. There are six scavengers in the parish who collect
refuse in motor-driven vehicles. It is deposited on the
foreshore near Prestongrange Colliery, where an area of
about sixteen acres has been reclaimed from the sea. A large
groin was constructed, and mine and other industrial refuse
has helped in this scheme of reclamation. An efficient system
of collection and sale of salvage is in existence in the
town of Prestonpans.
A gas company was formed in the burgh in 1846, and electricity
came to the parish in the late igaos. At that time the streets
of Prestonpans were lit by gas and those of Preston and
Cuthill by electricity, but since then the burgh has changed
to electric street lamps.
Four hundred and eighty seven (or 71 per cent.) of the 686
houses in the burgh are municipal houses, and in the landward
area the percentage of houses owned by the County Council
is still higher. Between 1920 and 1939 the Town Council
built 420 houses, and since 1945 they have added 100 temporary
and 99 permanent houses. In the same two periods the County
Council built 500 and 119 houses in the parish, 100 of the
latter being temporary houses.
At present there are three schools in the parish. The West
School at Cuthill has a roll of just over 100 and provides
instruction for pupils from the infant stage to the age
of nine. Prestonpans Primary and Junior Secondary School
is situated immediately to the south of the High Street.
The main school building was erected recently and the whole
forms a large modern school. The roll is just over 900,
of whom fewer than 20 come from outside the parish. The
school has large infant and primary departments and a three
years' secondary department with courses in woodwork and
metalwork, rural science, and domestic science. The work
done in the school garden is so efficient that it has been
featured in wireless programmes by the B.B.G. The school
choirs and individual pupils have for many years been among
the leading trophy winners at Edinburgh and other musical
festivals.
The third school is Preston Lodge Senior Secondary School
which was opened in 1925. It stands just north of the railway
station, and has 9 acres of playing fields within its grounds.
The roll is about 600 pupils of both sexes. Of these 79
boys
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